


The Maxwell Paradox

by violetvaria



Category: The Greatest American Hero
Genre: Character Study, Friendship, Gen, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-11-03 22:39:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17886485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violetvaria/pseuds/violetvaria
Summary: Bill Maxwell is, without doubt, the biggest mass of walking contradictions I have ever known.





	The Maxwell Paradox

Bill Maxwell is, without doubt, the biggest mass of walking contradictions I have ever known.

He’s smart, and he takes pains to hide that fact, and even greater pains to announce his genius to the world. He talks with equal impunity about his faults and his triumphs, and he’ll probably snarl at you for doing either.

He considers himself just another Fed, one of a group, doing no more nor less than any good servant of the U.S. government. If anyone tries to show him that he’s different, he gets irritable to the point of implosion. And if anyone tries to say another agent is better than he is, he is nearly explosively infuriated.

He is close-mouthed, constantly operating on a “need-to-know” basis—and of course no one needs to know besides himself—but he babbles incessantly, talking talking talking, sometimes about nothing, sometimes letting valuable information leak so that if you’re used to him, you’ll catch it.

He uses nonsense as a cover, yet he really is full of it sometimes. He uses his nonstop chatter to get you to give in, to do what he wants, to agree with his insane point of view, and he also uses it to reassure, to let you know you aren’t alone, to let you know those fears you have are real, because he feels them too.

Then sometimes he is taciturn to the point of being oyster-like. He snaps out orders intermingled with pleas, and it doesn’t matter what the words are, because if you don’t do it, he’ll try again later, ordering again, pleading again, seeming distant as though he’s thinking of complex things. Maybe he is.

He hates that I have the “jammies” and he doesn’t, and he wouldn’t want to deal with the suit’s zany powers in a million years. He is seriously creeped out by the whole “green guys” thing, and he thrives on the knowledge that he has a secret weapon no one else on earth (as far as we know) possesses.

(Sometimes I wonder if I should be doing more, should be going farther afield, saving the world and all that stuff. Sometimes Bill dreams of exactly that, although his dreams usually center on saving the good old U.S. of A. And then sometimes I figure if the suit was given to us, we have to focus on things that happen around us, and Bill claims to be _positive_ that the suit was given to us to fight the bad guys he happens to run into.)

He cares more than he’ll ever let on—I don’t know if feelings are a weakness or a liability or what. And yet he’s one of the most forcefully emotive people you’ll ever run into. And just because most of that emotion rolls off in waves of anger doesn’t mean that those who know him a little too well can’t see past that.

And sometimes, there’s nothing to see.

He thinks I don’t know how he feels about me, how he feels about what we do, and yet he takes for granted that I must know so he has no need to explain any of that. He assumes I don’t need his praise, so there’s no reason to give any out, but when he does, he acts as though his words are golden nuggets that he is bestowing upon me. If I ever try to do more than shake his hand—and even that, sometimes, is too much for him—he’ll snap at me and accuse me of being “touchy-feely.”

And when I was shot, he held me next to his heart like he’d never let me go.

He thinks if he just pretends it isn’t there, it won’t matter how much he needs me, although he proclaims just about every case that I have to be his backup or his frontman or his birddog or whatever else is his current euphemism for _partner_. And he is forever extolling his own virtues, explaining why I couldn’t do this without him, how I wouldn’t be what I am without him.

And I don’t know if he says it because it’s true or because he thinks it isn’t.

He is the most frustrating, conniving, arrogant, straightforward, loyal, _caring_ person I have ever known. And he is my best friend.


End file.
